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Holocaust-Denying Bishop Reinstated by Pope Explains His Belief That No Jews Died in Gas Chambers

Attacks on Pope Benedict XVI's decision to lift the excommunication of a Holocaust denier escalated Monday, with one theologian calling on him to step down as the head of the Roman Catholic Church.
Criticism following the pope's January 24 announcement has been particularly cutting in Germany, where denying the Holocaust is a crime punishable with a jail sentence.

"If the pope wants to do some good for the Church, he should leave his job," eminent liberal Catholic theologian Hermann Haering told the German daily Tageszeitung. "That would not be a scandal, a bishop has to relinquish his position at 75 years, a cardinal loses his rights at 80 years," he said. Pope Benedict is 81.

Meanwhile, a senior Vatican official acknowledged the Vatican administration may have made "management errors" with the decision to lift excommunication against four bishops, including Richard Williamson, whose comments sparked the controversy.

"I observe the debate with great concern. There were misunderstandings and management errors in the Curia," said Cardinal Walter Kasper, who is in charge of the Vatican department that deals with Jewish relations. "The Pope wanted to open the debate because he wanted unity inside and outside," the German cardinal told Vatican Radio. He also noted that "these bishops are still suspended."

An international uproar followed the decision to rehabilitate Williamson, an English bishop who has dismissed as "lies" historical evidence that six million Jews were gassed by the Nazis during World War II. Jews and Catholics alike have produced widespread criticism.

"A pardon that tastes of poison," wrote Franco Garelli, an expert in religious history, in Italy's daily La Stampa Monday. "The trouble caused by this complicated affair is evident not only outside the Church but within it," wrote the academic, who spoke of the "profound discomfort stirred up by the lifting of the excommunication in numerous Catholic circles."

"Bishop Williamson, who has said that the Vatican is controlled by Satan and that the Jews are bent on world domination, reiterated in a broadcast last week on Swedish television that the historical evidence was “hugely against six million having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler. I believe there were no gas chambers”. "

"Bishop Williamson, who has said that the Vatican is controlled by Satan and that the Jews are bent on world domination, reiterated in a broadcast last week on Swedish television that the historical evidence was “hugely against six million having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler. I believe there were no gas chambers”. "

This guy and the media attention he is receiving is sucking the oxygen out of a much more important issue which is dialog with the Lefebvrist leadership.

There are all kinds of misinformed or flat out crazy people who belong to the RCC or who even have leadership positions within it just as those same people turn up in Hasidic Judaism, Islam, atheism, or whatever. That's not important.

What's important is this pope is willing to begin a conversation with the millions of Catholics who view themselves as traditionalists and who have been put in the position of attending SSPX churches. Williamson's personal historical viewpoint is not accepted by the RCC and it has no impact on this decision. Lifting the excommunication is not a reinstatement of authority; it's an acknowledgment that certain specific religious conditions have been fulfilled according to Canon law. This in no way changes the position of the RCC toward Jews or any other non-Christian group.

This might begin the process of conceding that VCII was implemented in a harsh and destructive way by out-of-control bishops who twisted the genuine reforms in order to impose their own personal social and incorrect theological views on helpless Catholics. It might.

That's the real story here; not the personal opinion of one guy who also happened to be caught up in a much wider and more important issues.

Still, the actions Benedict is taking makes it appear that he is un-doing what his predecessor did. It was JPII who did the excommunications after Lefebvre consecrated the bishops, right?

Yes, but the issues involved here are extremely complex and very esoteric. The then Cardinal Ratzinger was very involved an effort to reconcile the Lefebvrists prior to the ordination. If anyone alive today understands the issues, both technical and doctrinal, it's the current pope.

There have been a number of abuses that grew out of the second council. To cultural Catholics, non-Catholics, and secular observers these abuses have been confused with the reforms. There is a growing movement to distinguish between these things and to identify and eliminate the abuses. This process can look as though Catholics are rejecting the actual reforms of VCII but that is absolutely not true. However, the observations of the media, politicians, and various poorly informed pundits is hurting, not helping, this process.

People in SSPX churches would like nothing better than to regularize their relationship with Rome.

True. So what you do is give the school staff the power to stop whatever happens. If it's verbal teasing, you give them the power to tell the kids to stop it. If it's rock throwing, you give them the...